Wine tips from enologist Klaus Platter

Lagrein Kretzer - served chilled, a perfect wine for summer afternoons. It also makes for a great change of pace with simple pasta dishes.

Lagrein - because of its fine-grained tannins, it can already be drunk very young, but also holds up well with several years of additional aging.

Did you know . . .

... that while a deposit of fine, crystalline “wine salt” may not be aesthetically pleasing, it has no negative implications for the quality of the wine?

... that despite careful cork selection, five or ten out of every hundred bottles of wine is tainted by cork flavours? Because the cork is too firm and creates too tight a seal, these wines are no good for cooking or making vinegar, let alone drinking. Pour them out!

... that not only full-bodied reds like Lagrein or Cabernet Sauvignon go well with sharp cheeses? A chilled “passito” sweet wine (made from muscatel or Gewürztraminer grapes) makes for an equally enjoyable combination.

... that white wines and "pale red” vernatsch grown at mountain altitudes can be just as complex and impressive as heavier reds?

... that in South Tyrol, the designation “dry” means that a wine can have no residual sugar (that is, no more than 3 grams of sugar per litre in total)? Gewürztraminer and Riesling are exceptions, and may contain as much as 8 grams of residual sugar and still bear the designation “dry”.